 |
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||
|
|
|
Henry County Missouri |
||
|
|
|
Four Families in Henry County by Co-operating Organized the Norris High School and Brought the School to Their Children Instead of Sending Their Children Away to School Misouri Ruralist, Vol. X, No. 512, August 3, 1912 (reprinted Clinton Daily Democrat) |
||
|
|
|
Norris is just the typical Missouri country community. Fertile soil, improved farms, good stock, some of the best people on earth are characteristics of the best type of Missouri country life. Where the roads cross is the country store, house in an ordinary two-story building, run by an honest, energetic, progressive young man who knows that the welfare of his neighbors is his own welfare. Across the road is Mrs. Crists', the goal of many a weary drummer looking for a good dinner, or comfortable lodging for the night. Then there is the blacksmiths shop, and a few hundred yards away the country church. These, with three or four dwellings along the road, constitute Norris, and make it just like hundreds of other Missouri communities - except the school. And for the school the most credit should be given to a woman. Born in the country, daughter of one of the county's best families, growing into womanhood on the farm, marrying a farmer, this woman knew and appreciated all that was best in farm life. As the years passed on she looked ahead and saw the time coming when her two boys would leave the home and "go away to school". She saw it coming sooner than it comes to the mother who lives in town for the country school takes care of her boys for only eight years, while the town boy is offered education at his door for 12. Other women of the community realized this condition, as do country women all over the state. Nor were the women all. The husbands also knew the day was soon to come when the education of the boys and girls would stop, or when they would leave the farm to go to town to school. The men realized, too, that the chances were that the boy who left the farm at 14 to go to town to school would acquire tastes and habits, which would keep him off the farm the rest of his life. And out of this desire to keep their children at home, to give them the same advantages that were given the boys and girls in town grew the Norris High School. |
||
|
|
|
HOW NORRIS HIGH SCHOOL WAS ORGANIZED |
||
|
|
|
To run a school two things are absolutely necessary - children and money. These folks at Norris realized what some people have yet to learn - that the reason towns and cities have better schools is because the towns and cities of Missouri are putting in three times as much money per pupil per day as the country districts are spending. Yet on the other hand they knew that farm folk would pay out for board and tuition to town or city districts more than enough to run a school in the country. At Norris four men were found who were willing to spend their money in a country high school rather than to spend it sending their children away to school. These four men were Frank Swindell, Will Swart, Will Ward and Frank Gray. Mr. Swindell had two children ready for the ninth grade, Mr. Swart had three. Mr. Ward had two, while Mr. Gray went into the school the first year so that it would be ready for his boys when they were ready for it. To count the expense of a boy away at school at $200 per year, which includes tuition, board, books, etc. is to count it too little rather than too much. Yet these seven boys and girls would have taken out of the community $1,400 a year; more than twice as much as their school at home cost them. So these four men formed a school. They called on their county superintendent for assistance in organizing it, making out a course of study and securing a teacher. Few rules were laid down, but these were to be followed strictly. No pupil was to be admitted who had not completed the regular state course of study for the first eight grades. Other children than their own were to be admitted upon payment of a fixed tuition, the fee being $40 the first year. Deducting the amount received for tuition, the balance of the expense was to be met by the four families in proportion to the number of children each had in school, Mr. Gray assuming share of one child. The second floor of the store building was secured for a school room. It was fitted up with good single desks, slate blackboards and some library and laboratory equipment. They went to the State Normal School at Warrensburg, got Mr. F. M. Walters to come out and teach for them, agreeing to pay him $60 per month, and in September 1908 opened their school. |
||
|
|
|
SOME COST DETAILS |
||
|
|
|
The first year 11 pupils were enrolled; the ninth grade only being taught. That year the total cost amounted to $622.22, which included teacher's salary, rent and expenditures for furniture, books and incidentals. Of this amount three tuition pupils paid $40 each, or $120. The eight others paid $58.88 each, about one fourth as much as a year away at school would cost. During the school year of 1909-10 E. H. Cornick was employed to teach. He, too, was given $60 per month. Two grades, ninth and tenth, were taught. The total expense amounted to $555.21. The tuition was fixed at $30 per year and nine shares each paid $32.86. The third year opened in September 1910. A country boy who had worked his own way through school, Ralph T. Lionberger, was employed to teach at $75 a month. The total enrollment reached 16, of which eight were tuition pupils and eight shared the balance of the expense of the school, at $55.80 each. School began again in September 1911 with 19 pupils in attendance, eight paying tuition and 11 sharing the rest of the expense at $41.32 each. As to the course of study, the same work is done as in standard Missouri high schools. Four years of English, four of History, four of Mathematics, two of Science (Agriculture and Physical Geography), two of Latin and one of Bookkeeping are offered. The work is so alternated that every pupil has a chance for every one of these subjects during the four years, yet not more than nine are offered any one year and each class period is 43 minutes in length. The work has been inspected and approved by both the Missouri University and the state superintendent of public schools, and the graduates are able to hold their own with the graduates of any high school in Missouri. The first commencement was held this year. Seven graduates, three girls and four boys, received their diplomas - real parchment diplomas. No commencement exercises could have been more delightful. The church was tastefully decorated, the school furnished the music, the graduates had their orations and the crowd, drawn from miles and miles around, filled every seat. As in the organization of the school, so in the commencement exercises was seen the work of Mrs. F. M. Gray, constant friend and willing worker with these young people of her own community. |
||
|
|
|
***** |
||
|
|
|
Norris is like many other Missouri communities - except the school. It is nearly four miles to Blairstown, the nearest town. Each one of the men interested gets his mail on a rural route, Blairstown No. 22. The children coming to school have no transportation except what they furnish themselves. The 28 who have been enrolled during the four years have come an average distance of near 2 1/4 miles. During the year just passed, 19 pupils were enrolled and the average daily attendance was 18.6 or 97 percent of the enrollment. The last report of the state superintendent of schools shows that the average daily attendance in country schools is 63 percent of the enrollment and in town schools it is 74 percent. Yet this school maintained an average of 97 percent during the winter of 1911-12, and one pupil came six miles, while eight others came more than 3 1/2 miles. The school appeals to boys, too. In 1910-11 the total enrollment was 16, of whom 12 were boys and four girls. In 1911-12 five girls and 14 boys made up the 19 who attended the school. And the pupils are nearly grown, the class for which the country school today is making little or no provision. Two or three of them have already passed out of their "teens", while the average age is 17 years. The question of cost is secondary to the question of education, yet the school pays from the financial standpoint. The total cost to the seven graduates for four years of standard work has been $1,249.75, an average of $178.54 per pupil for four years, or $44.64 per year. The towns and cities of Missouri spent in 1910-11 $256 per pupil attending school, and this is an average of both high school and grade school expenditures. The large attendance in the grades bringing the average down. For this high school the expenditure per pupil per day was only $234. Nor is this the only element of saving. Boys and girls go to this country school without feeling called upon to respond to all the follies and fancies of fashion. The overalls appear elsewhere than in the manual training shop, and gingham aprons are not reserved along for the domestic science department. And when the school day is done, the books are put into a flour sack and taken home for actual study at night. The girls help their mothers with evening and morning meals, while the boys are at home to do the chores. And when supper is over, the dining room table is cleared off, the lamp put in the center of it, while around it are grouped the boys and girls of the family preparing their school work for the next day. And the moving picture show, the skating rink, the corner crowd and the mid-week party do not interfere with the chief business. No question of discipline arises to disturb the work of the school. All are there to get all the good they can. No gymnasium is needed. The hours of honest work with their hands at home keep the body sound. But the play hour has not disappeared. In baseball and in basketball the Norris High School teams are known and feared. The defect in the organization of the school is lack of permanency. Its life now depends upon four men. If these should draw out, if the store keeper should refuse to rent his upper room or if any one of several other things should happen, the school would have to close. Such an institution ought to be a part of the regular public school system. They should - see these boys and girls mean as much to the state as do the boys and girls of any city in Missouri. |
||
|
|
|
OTHERS ARE FOLLOWING EXAMPLE |
||
|
|
|
The Norris High School is the first country high school in Henry County. But September 1912 will see another one begin work. Under similar organization is a high school association will start its school at Leesville, 12 miles from a railroad, this year. Again the second story of a store building will be used. Again it will be a country high school for country boys and country girls. Norris is like many other Missouri communities - except the school. |
||
|
|
|
NORRIS HIGH SCHOOL |
||
|
|
|
Class of 1912: Emil Harrison, Grady Swart, Lida Swart, Verlie Swart, Beulah Swindell, Rolla Swindell, Paul Ward. Class of 1913: Cecil Gray, Mildred Hampton, Virgie Hendricks, Blanche Ward. Class of 1914: Lewis Beaty Harry Gray, Forrest Harrison, Ivan Howerton, Orval Swindell, Harold Waugh |
||
|
|
|
***** |
||
|
|
|